Most Popular Web Hosting Sites In 2018

Users have spoken - 2018's most popular web hosts below!

Some web hosts are the fastest, some are the most secure, others are the cheapest, while still others beat everyone else with top-notch customer support. Some web hosts are just outright popular. That doesn't mean they are not good. In fact, many of the most popular web hosting providers are excellent. But which are the best? Our team has reviewed dozens of popular web hosts, but only a few made it to our list. Read on to see who came out on top.

Guaranteed flexibility, reliability, and exposure to a wide user-base with high customer satisfaction

Enjoy round-the-clock customer support while installing and running only the features you need

Run the CMS of your choice on the setup of your choice, whether shared, dedicated, VPS, cloud, or otherwise

Customization & flexibility

Support & resources

Large, medium, & small plans available

Choose the plan you need whether for a small project, blog, company website, or enterprise solution

Admin panel & custom control

Choose your desired level of server access and management, or leave management to your hosting team

Hallmarks of popular hosting providers

What makes a good web host a great one? Having the ability to reach more customers in more geographic locations and provide them all with great service is certainly one thing, but not all of the most popular web hosts are huge companies.

An ability to address pain points of customers today, and an ability foresee what customer needs will be tomorrow, both play a big part in satisfaction ratings and consumer goodwill. Since a lot of the most popular web hosting plans are driven by word of mouth, being able to keep people happy is job one!

Investing in infrastructure to have the fastest or most expansive network may help in certain areas, but there is nothing that gives more confidence (not to mention repeat customers, and new business leads) than customers who are happy with your services and who promote them for you.

Why being popular helps

Pretty much every customer that comes your way will have done some product comparisons of their own, either in depth or at a basic level. They may have read reviews, or asked around about what other people are doing.

One result of this fact is that consumers are more aware of products and services prior to purchase than ever before. Another result is that reviews and customer comments have become an increasingly important part of the decision process of new, would-be clients.

In the game of consumer vs. producer, consumers band together and share experiences and feelings. This has a snowball effect where the top popular web hosts consistently rank high and score high marks in the areas that matter to consumers, while low scorers have a harder time making a break and developing their user base. In short, the top folks are there for a reason!

Does popular mean big?

In many cases, yes. What good would being a popular web host be if you are unable to capitalize on positive user sentiment and cater to more people (unless keeping your business small is a strategic goal to begin with)?

Most of the popular web hosting plans belong to big players, but many small companies provide services to specific user groups that have specific requirements that go above and beyond regular needs, or are more stringent or rigorous than average web hosting clients. Rest assured, however, that we've covered such companies in our rankings as well!

The right plan, with everything you may possibly need

Popular plans are carefully filtered and selected to ensure high performance, competitive pricing, and rich features, services, and options

Important integrations

Optimize for WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal

Choose the CMS of your liking and configure your website and server accordingly

Money-back guarantee

Launch your site today, and if you're not happy with the service, get your money back, guaranteed

Yardsticks and measures

When dealing with things like being popular and preferred, find the right mix of how to measure these qualitative characteristics can be a challenge. Our approach uses measures of customer satisfaction and real-life customer experiences, along with comparisons of price, features, and speed, plus overall sales and market performance, to gauge who is doing well, and who the most popular web hosts really are.

Combining all of the above with publicly available stats and data allows us to pinpoint hosting leaders from the rest of the pack, and the leaders are those whom we have featured here.

Popularity reflects actual services

When choosing a web host for your needs, whether your needs are for business, are personal, or otherwise, go for a top popular web hosting service. You never know how your needs may change tomorrow, or what you may or may not need later with respect to your current plan. You may need to change operating systems, or launch a different version of service not compatible with your current setup.

I'm all set, where do I sign?

From security and ease of use to speed, reliability, customer service, and functionality, these top web hosting providers can take care of all your hosting needs today and tomorrow, so if you're ready to get started, sign up with confidence and start your online project or website today!

How we rate

We combine measures of customer satisfaction and real-life customer experiences with comparisons of price, available features, speed, overall sales and market performance to come up with the most popular web hosts.

Combining all of the above with publicly available stats and data allows us to pinpoint hosting leaders from the rest of the pack, and the leaders are those whom we have featured here.

Got questions? We got answers

Browse our FAQs to learn more about popular web hosts

Are all popular web hosts good?

What differentiates a good web host from a great one is the ability to reach more customers in more geographic locations while providing them all with great, reliable, fast, and convenient service. The ability to address pain points of customers today and the ability foresee what customer needs will be tomorrow both play a big part in a company's consumer satisfaction ratings and customer goodwill.

Since a lot of the most popular web hosting plans are driven by word of mouth, keeping your customers happy is a top priority. Nothing is as good a measure of good service than customers who are happy with you and who promote you in their social or professional circles. If a certain web host has become popular with customers, it is probably reliably good.

Should I only use popular web hosts?

It depends. There are many web hosting service providers that are very niche that cater to specific customer types. Others specialize in providing specific types of services. As such, these web hosts may not be very popular or well known, but they are still the go-to people if you have very specific needs or requirements, so you would need to host with them if you want your hosting done right.

For general users, however, the answer is probably yes, as long as the host fits your budget and basic requirements. In the game of consumer vs. producer, consumers band together to share experiences and feelings, and public reviews of web services are a good measure of how good a certain host is. The top folks are there for a reason, so you'll be in good hands if you sign up with a popular host.

Do all popular web hosts support WordPress?

Yes, pretty much. The only exceptions are high-end, niche hosts that are popular only in their areas of expertise. WordPress is an extremely popular content management system that is used by millions of people every day. The WordPress developer community has created thousands of templates, and plugins to match, for this user-friendly, highly versatile, and open-source technology.

Because popular web hosts are in the business of hosting websites for as many people, companies, and entities as they can, the synergies that are created by combining good hosting with the popularity of WordPress is too good a combination to miss. As a result, we see that the vast majority of popular web hosts support WordPress, except for the few exceptions specified above.

Do popular web hosts cater for small businesses?

Yes, for the most part. One of the things that popular web hosts do is capitalize on positive user sentiment to cater to more people (except for a few for whom keeping the business small is a strategic goal to begin with).

It is true that many popular web hosting plans belong to big players that provide services to other big players, but there are still many companies that provide services to specific user groups, including small businesses and private individuals, that have specific requirements that are above and beyond regular needs, or that are more stringent or rigorous than average web hosting clients.

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At Web.hosting, we aim to provide our readers with thorough, useful, and accurate information on web hosting plans, packages, and service providers. We take everything from real-life customer reviews to usage statistics, server ping times, customer support ratings, and money-back guarantees into account to provide you with all the information you need to choose the host and plan that is right for you.